Judge in Kenya Upholds Use of Anal Exams for Men Suspected of Being Gay

NAIROBI, Kenya — Human rights groups expressed outrage on Thursday over a Kenyan court’s decision to uphold mandatory anal examinations of men who are suspected of being gay.

In Kenya, a colonial-era law prohibiting “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” is widely understood to prohibit anal sex or sex between men. On Thursday, a court in Mombasa denied a petition to overturn the government’s practice of subjecting men to forced anal exams.

While human rights groups criticized the exams as abusive and medically worthless, government officials argued that they were a useful way to tell if a man was gay.

“This ruling is a devastating precedent that has now heightened the risk and fear of similar anal testing on many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer persons in Kenya,” said Eric Gitari, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a Kenyan advocacy group.

“Suspecting someone of being gay should not be grounds for stripping them of their dignity and their fundamental rights.”

In Kenya, the case involving the anal exams began last year, when two men were arrested at a bar near Mombasa by police officers who suspected them of being gay. The police obtained a court order for the anal examinations.

The two men signed consent forms for the exams and H.I.V. tests; they have since claimed that they did so under duress.

The men, with the help of gay rights groups, filed a petition asking the court to declare anal exams unconstitutional and to throw out evidence collected from them.

But Justice Anyara Emukule of the Mombasa High Court ruled against them, saying that it was clear to him that the men “willingly and voluntarily consented” to the exams.